1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to online virtual communities and more particularly to gaming methods in resource and action based virtual communities.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, a new form of marketing and advertising has found its way to the Internet. This new form of marketing and advertising model involves large numbers of online users and makes use of a scavenger hunt model, or requires users who watch particular TV shows or movies to go online to search for answers for predefined questions and compete to determine the winners.
Most of these sites sponsor a treasure or scavenger hunt in which participants are asked to provide answers to questions, while others make use of a spy series, for example, and requires users to guess what a character will do in the upcoming show. For example, one such advertising site may be found at www.internettreasurehunt.com. One of the TV show is the spy drama series—Spooks by BBC broadcast in 2002 and another one is ABC's spy drama series, Alias broadcast in November, 2001. Those two types of games have one thing in common. They both involve large numbers of multiple users who participate in the game by browsing web sites for answers.
Another type of activity involving large numbers of multiple users includes online games. With the popularity of Internet games beginning with the original text based MUD (multi user games) to recent more advanced 3D online adventures or other online games, more and more people have become connected to the virtual world offered by online games. For example, in China one of the online games vendors, ShenDa has over half a million people playing together. To play such games, users need to install client software and also pay subscription fees in order to connect to the vendors' game servers.
All the above activities require users in the Internet to use dedicated time to participate and enroll in the event or game. For example, when playing online games, users are focusing only on the game and cannot spare time for other work. As such, users cannot play games and enjoy other activities such as web surfing concurrently.
Virtual communities based on resources users are currently accessing or actions users are performing as disclosed in my co-pending application Ser. Nos. 10/710,964 and 60/596,524. Virtual communities connect people around the world together while they are accessing the same resource or conducting the same or similar activities. A user uses a regular web browser to connect to the Internet and a browser plug-in or helper object connects to the virtual communities based on the resource the user is accessing or actions or behaviors the user has taken or been engaged in so that the user is able to connect with all others who are also accessing the same resource at the same time or performing the same actions. Virtual community members can communicate and collaborate together including chatting, sharing information, asking for help or exchanging ideas. It is also another type of peer to peer technology in the Internet.
A virtual community server or servers serve the virtual communities. Everyone who participates is assigned a unique user id and has installed a client side program, browser plug-in, or helper object that is responsible for communicating with the community servers while the user is accessing web resources or services. The virtual communities based on resources or actions can further be grouped together to allow more users who are visiting groups of web resources to connect and communicate to each other. During this process, users' privacy will be strictly protected under all conditions although user's web access information is transferred to the virtual community servers and may even be persisted for some time with users' permission.
Prior art game systems and methods are well known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 6,102,406 to Miles et al. entitled “Internet-based advertising scheme employing scavenger hunt metaphor” disclose an Internet-based service configured to operate a scavenger hunt in which participants are required to answer questions using information obtained from one or more Web sites visited in response to hints suggesting where such information may be located. Each preceding question must be successfully answered before a next question is presented. Generally, a correct answer requires verification that a respondent visited the Web site at which the information required in the answer is located. This, in turn, may require that the respondent reached the Web site at which the information required in the answer is located through an authorized path including at least one predetermined Web address. This patent discloses a web based scavenger hunt game. The disclosed games does not involve interaction and collaboration among community members.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20040097287 to Postrel entitled “Method and system for gaming over a computer network” discloses a networked, online gaming system and method of operation. The system includes a plurality of players, each operating a game playing computer interconnected over a network with a gaming server computer. The gaming server computer generates a profile for each of the players, which may include the player's gaming proficiency, and socioeconomic and physical data of the player. The gaming server computer matches the players (as teammates or opponents) to play a game based on the profile of the players, supervises the game played by the matched players, modifies controllable parameters of the game being played, and manages a reward point account provided for each player. This patent application talks about matching players to player games based on their profiles, and does not relate to matching players based on their web interests and activities.
The publication “I Want My MMOE-TV!” disclosed at http://www.mssv.net/archives/000072.shtml on Sep. 12, 2004 discloses mmoe—massively multiuser online entertainment that was done in May 2002 on the BBC's spy drama series, Spooks. Run by the Fictionlab department of the BBC, the game will involve players sifting through clues on an MI5 ‘extranet’ website among others, and of course watching the TV show to pick up additional hints. It will take place in real time—although in practice what this means remains to be seen—and will last for seven weeks. It also mentioned the success of Microsoft's AI web marketing campaign by running an interactive online game alongside the TV. It also discussed different categories of MMOE with TV and movie combinations—one or two way, transparent or significant. The publication discusses interactivity between a TV show and its own audience. It does not relate to a system that may involve all people who are using the Internet and allow participation in real-time of multi-user games at the same time the users are browsing the Internet.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,676,521 to La Mura et al. entitled “Enhanced online game mechanisms” discloses a method of providing interactive online communication through a network comprising creating a population from a plurality of network participants in which the said participants are operatively coupled to participate in a game, then selecting a sub-population from the population based upon some pre-selected criteria, inviting the population to said game and receiving a confirmation from said sub-population. This patent relates to enhanced, online community game systems. It discloses an interface module operatively coupled for communication with a transaction handler. The system is not based upon dynamic, resource based virtual communities.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,479 to Sparks, II, entitled “Interactive gaming server and online community forum” discloses a multiplayer game system implemented over the WWW using a plurality of game servers dynamically linked to and controlled by a WWW server. The WWW server dynamically links game players who log on to a web site hosted by the WWW server as a function of game playing statistics for each game player which are stored in the WWW server. The game servers generate the game player statistics for each player during and/or after game play and upload the game player statistics to the WWW server. The WWW server matches game players to appropriate games currently being played on the game servers based on the skill level required by the game and the corresponding skill levels of other current players of that game as represented by the game player statistics stored by the WWW server and dynamically generates links for the game player to the appropriate games. The user can then select which game to play by choosing one of the dynamically generated links. This patent relates to how to implement a game server with a WWW server. It requires all game players to log on to the particular www server in order to play.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20040249811 to Shostack et al. entitled “Web based dating service with filter for filtering potential friends/mates using physical and/or personality attractiveness criteria” discloses a dating related web site incorporating a number of services of interest to subscribers seeking a compatible mate or friend. A would-be subscriber first specifies profile information including authentication information, information relating to qualities desired in a friend and mate, and a screen image icon. The profile information is stored in a database associated with a web server hosting the dating site. The subscriber can then log onto the site and take advantage of chat room environments featured at the site. Rooms are hierarchically organized into lobbies and sub-lobbies corresponding to topics and sub-topics of discussion. In addition, the lobby and sub-lobby screens indicate the concentration of compatible participants in the rooms of corresponding lobbies and sub-lobbies, thus allowing easy navigation to a desirable room.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20040260781 to Shostack et al. entitled “Web based dating service with weighted interests matching” discloses a dating related web site incorporating a number of services of interest to subscribers seeking a compatible mate or friend. A would-be subscriber first specifies profile information including authentication information, information relating to qualities desired in a friend and mate, the relative importance of the respective categories, and a screen image icon. The profile information is stored in a database associate with a web server hosting the dating site. The subscriber can then log onto the site and advantage the of chat room environments featured at the site. Rooms are hierarchically organized into lobbies and sub-lobbies corresponding to topics and sub-topics of discussion. In addition, the lobby and sub-lobby screens indicate the concentration of compatible participants in the rooms of corresponding lobbies and sub-lobbies, thus allowing easy navigation to a desirable room.
The above two patent applications disclose automatic navigation allowing the user to find a chat room with compatible participants automatically once a sub-lobby is selected and support “virtual date”. In addition “Physical Attractiveness” and/or “personality attractiveness” criteria also permit the subscriber to screen members in the database based on community ratings of the physical attractiveness and/or personality attractiveness of the members. These applications do not provide a date matching based on user's normal web browsing behaviors.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20050024488 to Borg entitled “Distributed immersive entertainment system” discloses a multi-camera high-definition Point of Capture (POC) and Point Of Display (POD) controlled using a graphically based tool called the LightPiano. There is extensive use of the Worldwide Web for both local and remote access to the chat, fan clubs, SMS and instant messaging systems, as well as for online access for customers to view scheduling, and purchase ticketing, webcasts and archive access. The Web is also used by the venue owner to manage the entire system for booking, data mining, scheduling, ticketing, webcasting, and facilities management. The Web interface combined with the power of the LightPiano makes this complex interrelated system relatively easy and intuitive to operate. It significantly lowers the cost of operation and makes the system scalable to a large network of POCs and PODs. It allows one POC to feed many PODs, enabling a truly global distributed, immersive entertainment environment. This patent focuses on a distributed entertainment environment and not on how users of the communities can interact and participate with others in the game.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20010034661 to Ferreira entitled “Methods and systems for presenting a virtual representation of a real city” discloses methods and systems in which users may navigate among a virtual representation of a real region, such as a city. The interface may include images of actual city blocks that have interactive items of interest such as storefronts. Users may virtually shop in the stores that adorn the virtual city blocks. The virtual city application may process orders for all merchants—local or web-based. An artificial intelligence component may be used in the form of a back-end linear programming model to provide an intelligent personal assistant. Chore-management may thus be automated. This application discusses virtual cities which could also be regarded as one type of virtual community but does not relate to a multi-user game which is based on users browsing the Internet.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20040044567 to Willis entitled “Gaming service provider advertising system” discloses a method of advertising for use by a Gaming Service Provider providing a customer gaming console in connection with a wide area network. The method includes the steps of providing an identification from the customer gaming console to a Gaming Service Provider downloading an advertisement out of a plurality of advertisements to the customer gaming console, initializing the customer gaming console for playing a game and for displaying the advertisement, playing a game on the customer gaming console, and displaying the advertisement on the customer gaming console, when the game is not being played. Alternatively, the steps of the method are not initialized by the Gaming service provider, but from the gaming console site. Further, certain games played on the gaming console incorporate advertisements into their gaming environments. This patent relates to a method of conveying and displaying ads to users.
What is needed then is a system and method of providing a game in resource and/or action based virtual communities. What is also needed is a system and method of providing a game that allows players to simultaneously play the game and perform other non-game activities. What is further needed is a system and method of providing a game that can be played implicitly by players engaging in normal browsing or other activities. What is further needed is a system and method of providing a game in which the game is distributed across multiple virtual communities spread across the Internet. What is also needed is a system and method of providing a matching game that matches participants based on the participants' interests and activities and the system automatically and dynamically creates and updates participants' profiles.